The Coming Messiah V: The Connection between David and Immanuel

The Emmanuel Passages in Isaiah and Their Historical Context

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder. And during this Christmas season, we are looking at the Emmanuel passages. They show up in Isaiah 7, again in chapter 9 of the prophet Isaiah, and then in 11.

And I think we're familiar with most of these. For instance, in Isaiah 7, verse 14, we read, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel.

What we've been doing differently this time is that we're looking at these Emmanuel passages in their historical context, so the moral and spiritual decline. Israel to the north, worshiping the golden calves and idols, and now Judah to the south, under Ahaz, who is the father of a godly king to come, Hezekiah.

But Ahaz is a very ungodly king, and he is promoting idolatry throughout the land. He has burned his sons alive as an offering to Molech. He is leading the nation to throw off all restraints, God says.

And these promises come at such a time, a great mercy. But sadly, Ahaz and the country of Judah remain unmoved by the hope of the coming of Emmanuel. And we've asked ourselves as we've looked at these passages, is that the way we treat them?

Do we tip our hat to the cliches about Christ during the Christmas season? Do we sit through sermons that describe His coming, His birth, His work, His death, His resurrection, His claims, and we remain indifferent, even though we are there sitting in the church?

It's not really changing us. Have we altered our lives at all to make room for what God says about Emmanuel? Well, in chapter 9, after some bad news of judgment, this gloomy picture is transformed by the coming of Emmanuel, and we've talked about that.

And that brings us down to verse 7. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace on the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord will accomplish this. Now, while this verse has so much that's helpful, we're going to just focus in on one thing this week, and we're going to have to pick it up again next week.

Why Isaiah Connects Emmanuel to David

I want us to consider this recurring theme in Isaiah and the other prophets and the Gospels and the New Testament, but we'll focus in on Isaiah. Why this continual connection between Emmanuel and King David or the kingdom that God sends Emmanuel to establish and the throne of David?

It seems strange if you remember that Isaiah is prophesying and writing this about 250 years after David dies. So why is it that God continues to point through the prophets and into the New Testament, point our eyes back to David and his throne as being at the center of our hope?

I want to give you just a few examples of other places this theme shows up. Jeremiah speaks of this many times in chapter 30, verse 9, just to give you one. The prophet writes, but they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Strange verse. Nearly 300 years later, why does Jeremiah say that God will raise up David for them and they will serve David? Is David going to be resurrected? He's been dead for three centuries. Well, no.

So what's it talking about? In the book of Ezekiel, long after the death of David and when Judah is conquered and in exile in Babylon, Ezekiel writes in chapter 37, verse 24, my servant David will be king over them and they will all have one shepherd and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them.

So Ezekiel is prophesying of the coming hope of a great deliverance. Strangely, he says, this will be done by David and it will cause the people to be under one great spiritual shepherd and not the failures of Ezekiel's day, the greedy ministers and priests who were poor shepherds, and it will cause the nation to walk in obedience.

New Testament continues this. Gabriel, the angel announcing the birth of Emmanuel in Luke 1, verse 32, says this, he will be great and he will be called the son of the most high. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and his kingdom will have no end.

Later in the book of Acts, we find Paul preaching to the Jews, explaining to them that the place that Jesus of Nazareth has in the unfolding of God's great redemptive promises, promises that the Jews should be aware of, in Acts 13, verse 22, we read this, Paul says, God raised up David to be their king, our forefathers, concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will.

From the descendants of this man, Paul goes on to say, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a savior, Jesus. There are so many examples that we could give of this, but I want to give two more, and that is back in Isaiah, in the very next passage where Emmanuel is described, which we'll be getting to in a couple of weeks.

In chapter 11 of Isaiah, in verse one, we read this, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And this again is talking of Emmanuel. Emmanuel will be from the line of Jesse.

He will be a David, so to speak. Then in verse 10, we read, then in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for the peoples and his resting place will be glorious.

In verse 10, again, we're learning about Emmanuel, Jesus of Nazareth. He is not just the branch off of the root system of Jesse. He's not just a descendant of David. He is the root of Jesse's life. He is the creator of Jesse and of every Davidic king from which he came.

Amazing passage, but we'll have to wait on that. Now, what are we to draw when we see all of these passages? And I think the simple answer is that while a person can be a believer and can experience the forgiveness that comes through the finished work of Christ and that life that comes when the spirit of God invades and in the new birth, he gives us a new heart, he opens our eyes, he frees our hands and feet from the enslavement to sin, and we run to Christ in faith and repentance, all of that can happen without fully understanding why Emmanuel is given in connection with David.

And yet, I think we can say that the frequent mentions of David's throne and David with the coming of Emmanuel surely indicate that there are aspects of the Christian life, there are heights and depths in the work of redemption that cannot be fully understood apart from understanding this connection.

The Zeal of the Lord Will Accomplish This

So, let's look at that, and especially the phrase that comes at the end of verse 7 in Isaiah 9, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So, after giving all these wonderful promises, what kind of a king he will be and what kind of a rule he will have, the summarizing statement at the end of verse 7 in Isaiah 9 is simple.

The way we know this will occur is because God is zealous about this, the zeal of God, that white hot intensity in the character of God, that attribute which, in a sense, unites and utilizes every other aspect of God, all the other attributes, and brings them to bear on what He does.

God is not capable of being half-hearted regarding anything that touches the person or work or people or reputation or reward of Emmanuel. Nothing will deter God, nothing will distract God. The passage of centuries and millennia will not dull His interest in the work of redemption.

The rebellion of humanity, the doubt and the sin in God's own people, whether it's ancient Israel or the modern church, will not in any way prevent God or derail the great work that Emmanuel is coming to do.

How do we know that? Because the zeal, not of a man or of an angel, but the zeal of the only God, will accomplish all that God promised to do. But now I want us to take that zeal and I want us to think of how it applies in one particular way.

I want us to look at how it applies to the throne of David and Emmanuel. Now that brings us not merely to the promises that we find in the Old Testament, promises made to David, which affect how we understand the person and work of Christ, but more than that, I want us to look at that unique thing that we call a biblical covenant.

The Biblical Covenants and the Unfolding of Redemption

God has, from Genesis to Revelation, been unfolding in a progressive way, pulling back the curtains on the window so that we can look through that biblical window and see more and more and more of the work of redemption, so that we can understand more by the time we reach the book of Psalms than we understood in the book of Exodus, and again more in the Gospels, and more when we get to Romans, and even more when we get to the book of Revelation.

This progressive unfolding of God's plan is done in the context of God making covenants, contracts with people, and these covenants really form the key elements in the unfolding of God's redemptive plan.

They form that wonderful scarlet thread that works its way from the beginning to the end of our Bibles, that connects all that we're reading, that keeps us from approaching the Old Testament as if it were simply a series of historical and interesting accounts that teach us morals, but don't really guide our understanding of the coming of Christ and of the work that He's doing today.

So at the heart of this promise of Emmanuel is a contract or a covenant that God made with David. Before we look at the covenant God made with David and how that affects our understanding of the work of Christ, I want us to back up and consider what are these biblical covenants, and how do they, each one lead to the next, and each following covenant build upon what preceded it?

How do we see them unfolding the portrait of the Messiah? Well, what is a covenant? Perhaps you haven't thought of that. A biblical covenant is simple. It's a guaranteed commitment between two parties.

One of them is God, and in this commitment there are duties that are placed on both, and these duties are clearly explained. There are, we could say, specific expectations in these covenants, and these go beyond the expectations that are found in the moral law.

Without any of these covenants we still owe God a wholehearted love, and idolatry is still wicked, but in these biblical covenants there are special things required, and we will see that there are special rewards or special penalties that are connected with the doing or not doing of this covenant.

The second element in a biblical covenant is that God always is the initiator, never man. Third, God makes these covenants with people through a representative, a covenant head, a covenant representative.

That's why when we speak of these covenants we talk about the Adamic covenant, God's covenant with Adam, God's covenant with Noah, or the Abrahamic covenant, God's covenant with Abraham, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and then we talk about the new covenant and the great contract of mercy and grace that God has made with our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

Another aspect of covenants, God's covenants provide something extra. This reward is something that would not have been given just by obeying, and we'll see that when we look at the rule of David compared to the rule of Saul and the rule of the other Davidic kings.

Of course there are privileges and blessings that come when we walk humbly and obediently with our God. If you could think of King Saul, imagine what life would have been like for King Saul if he had loved and trusted and obeyed the living God instead of being such a spiritual disappointment.

But no matter how much Saul obeyed, the entire nation would not have benefited in the way that the entire nation, in fact the entire world, Christians today are benefiting from the obedience of David and the Davidic kings because there was a special covenant and special promises and rewards were attached to that.

And of course these covenants also have penalties or sanctions for the non-performance. Now, quickly, let's get up to speed so we're ready next week for the Davidic covenant. When we look all the way back to the opening chapters of our Bible, we find God in an agreement with Adam, which God has initiated.

There are certain expectations for Adam, and there are certain promises from God, expectations. Adam has a right to expect God to be a certain way toward him, and there are rewards for obedience, and there were penalties promised for disobedience, and of course Adam disobeyed and the covenant is broken.

And when God in Genesis 3 is explaining the consequences of this sin, first he deals with the serpent or with Satan and the consequences that God promises will come upon him and his seed or those who, like Satan, disregard God's authority and live as if they are their own king.

But there are also statements made before the judgment of humanity. There are statements made that are of a merciful nature, the first mention of good news of the gospel, because God says to Eve, from you one will come who will crush this serpent's head ultimately, even though he will bruise your heel.

And that is our first glimpse of the hope of the coming of a rescuer. But all we know at that point is that the rescuer will be sent by God and he will be human. Years later we find God speaking with Noah after the in Genesis chapter 8 and then in chapter 9, and you know that God makes this covenant with Noah, and we remember that the rainbow is the sign of that covenant.

But I wonder if you remember the context of the covenant. In chapter 8 we read this, in verse 21, when Noah offers up an offering, it says, God smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man, because or for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.

And I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done while the earth remains, seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. What's he talking about?

Well, there's a lot to be said there, but one of the things that we see is because man's heart is wicked, because humanity is sinful, God promises that he will never destroy the earth again in the way he did in the flood.

And there will still be seasons and there still will be times to plant and to harvest. There will still be days and nights that will not cease. God will, in the midst of all of man's self-destructive sin, God will preserve this earth until he has accomplished all he promises to accomplish.

Then we come to Abraham years later, and God meets Abraham in Genesis. And we have this mentioned a number of times, but one of the times the covenant with Abraham is mentioned is in chapter 17. God promises that the Savior will not just be a human, but he will be from Abraham's family, which God will give him.

I'll give you a son. You'll be the father of a great nation. And through you, through your seed, singular, Paul points out later, through one of your descendants, all the nations will be blessed. Later in chapter 17, we read that kings will come from the wife of Abraham, from Abraham's line.

So we have the Rescuer will be human. God will preserve the earth until this Rescuer comes. The Rescuer will be Jewish and he will be kingly. Now that brings us to the covenant that God made with David and how that impacts our understanding of Emmanuel, of Jesus Christ, of who he was, what he came to do, and what he's doing today.

It has been 30 centuries, 3 ,000 years since God made those promises in that covenant with Abraham. And now in 2 Samuel chapter 7, verse 8 through 17, we're going to read and look at next week promises that God made to David in a relationship and with the people who, like Abraham, believe in God, believe in the coming hope.

We're going to find that the king that was promised is not just Jewish, but he's from the tribe of Judah. And he's not just from the tribe of Judah, but he's from the tribe of David. And this king will come, sent by God to rule a kingdom that never ends, and he will come to accomplish a number of things that are so critical to the happiness of every Christian.

So if you want to look at 2 Samuel chapter 7, particularly verse 8 through verse 17, you'll be ready for our look at the Davidic covenant next week and how that informs our understanding of Emmanuel.